“It always reminds me of getting my driving license… Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm was always on in the car,” she said on her podcast last year. The genre’s wry lyrics and crackling energy hold sentimental meaning for Williams, who grew up on the early 2000s British post-punk revival. Instead of regurgitating the gnarled mall punk of their previous records, on This Is Why they reach for the propulsive sounds of post-punk. As she reunites with bandmates Zac Farro and Taylor York, Paramore seem reluctant to retread their old rhythms: “We don’t want to be a nostalgia band,” Williams said last month. Meanwhile, on a pair of solo albums, Williams brought in collaborators including boygenius and experimented with softer, more intimate production. This Is Why is Paramore’s excellent foray into post-punk, riddled with a new set of anxieties - from witnessing global events to dealing with entering your thirties.In the five years since Paramore’s last album, After Laughter, the jagged, sinister sound the band carved out on their earliest records has returned in the poison-laced anthems of artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Willow.

Now, nearly two decades since the band released its debut album, All We Know Is Falling, the Tennessee-born group is exerting more of an indelible influence on current pop music than ever before (see the high-polished angst of Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish), even as they continue moving further and further from the emo-pop sound they helped reinvent. As omnivorous fans and champions of younger artists, they always remain steeped in pop’s ever-evolving present. In the process, Paramore have found themselves attached to a different kind of musical nostalgia, zeroing in on the slick sounds of Eighties rock and New Wave without so much as a hint of corny pastiche. Beginning with the band’s self-titled 2013 album, they have slowly peeled themselves away from the mainstream emo/pop-punk world they once dominated (all while dealing with constant lineup shake-ups). Paramore have mastered the art of maturing gracefully.

Paramore album sales numbers